Counting of ballots in 46th State Senate District continues in Ulster

Tuesday

Nov 27, 2012 at 2:00 AM

KINGSTON — An old-fashioned aura harkening back to the era of paper ballots was strongly in evidence Monday as Ulster County election officials, staffers from the two campaigns battling for the 46th State Senate District seat — and of course, lawyers — patiently toted up what will be the deciding votes.

BY JEREMIAH HORRIGAN

KINGSTON — An old-fashioned aura harkening back to the era of paper ballots was strongly in evidence Monday as Ulster County election officials, staffers from the two campaigns battling for the 46th State Senate District seat — and of course, lawyers — patiently toted up what will be the deciding votes.

The winner of the electoral battle between Republican Assemblyman George Amedore and Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk probably won't be known for several days, according to election officials.

In the meantime, those officials and teams from both campaigns crowded into two small, windowless rooms at Board of Elections offices and began counting roughly 4,200 absentee and affidavit votes, one by one.

All that was missing to complete the old-timey picture was cigar and cigarette smoke enough to fill the room.

As of Monday morning, Amedore had a 918 vote lead, but, depending on which side you spoke to Monday morning, Tkaczyk whittled that lead by between either 80 or 100 votes.

Republican Elections Board Chairman Tom Turco said results of the count-down probably won't be known for days.

jhorrigan@th-record.com

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